Welcome to the Other Hellmouth
by WolfWarriorz
Summary: Buffy and the Scoobies try to cope with their individual grief for those who didn't survive the battle with the First, while Dawn finds her own way of dealing. -My own AU version of Season Eight Buffy. Has nothing to do with the comics.


**A/N: Spoiler alert! For all of Buffy and probably all of Angel. Beware. This will play out a little like a TV Show. I will provide a description at the beginning of the chapter, as each chapter will be like a short episode, and they'll probably show up about as often :/ That being your first warning-_ UPDATES WILL BE SLOW_. I am ignoring all that happens in Season five of Angel, or in the comics, or the books and everything. This simply continues directly after Season Seven ends (well, there's the summer break like there was on TV so it's been three months, but you know what I mean) My pairings may very well be strange and disturbing. They often are. But I am not revealing anything yet. Getting into technicalities: I hear there was a Hellmouth in Cleveland, Ohio, but as this is AU, it's in Montana. Deal with it, or don't read it. The city, Fairview, I thought was fictional, but it turns out there actually is a town called Fairview in Montana. Woops. The college, however, IS fictional. My story does not take place in the real Fairview, but in my fictional one. I don't want to make up a new name. The original title for this fic was: Welcome to the Hellmouth (The Other One) but stupid fanfiction won't let me put parentheses in the title. Pout pout. Umm, any questions, feel free to ask, and any reviews, especially any yummy constructive criticism ones, are appreciated. Or just telling me I spelled "noodle" wrong. I wouldn't mind.

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Episode 1: Over and Over

_Buffy and the Scoobies have relocated to a Hellmouth in Fairview, Montana, and are battling the grief they still feel for the losses sustained in the tragic battle with the First. _

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Buffy woke, shivering and trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind. She had had her nightmare again, the one that had been plaguing her since that day, three months ago. Every night she relived her final moments in Sunnydale; the terror that they would never win the battle, the feeling of righteousness when the Slayers were called, the shock she felt when she had told Spike she loved him and realized it was true, even if he disregarded it. Ah, Spike. Why had he brushed off her last words so easily? And why did she have to walk away? What if she had ripped off the amulet and pulled him along with her to the bus? Could he have been saved? Was his death, his terrible, grief-bringing death really not necessary after all? These questions haunted her day and night. She could not escape them. The questions wrapped around the remnants of her heart, whispering that it had all been a big mistake, that it was Buffy's fault...

Her breathing quickened and she curled her thin fingers around pieces of her linens and twisted them, wishing her guilts and fears would leave her. But no, as every morning began with waking from her nightmare, every morning continued with thinking about the times she had with those who died. Buffy wished that she could have had one last talk with Anya before her death. To renew their friendship, strained as it was with Xander being the in-between man. Buffy wished she could have cheered up the Slayers that were lost, filled them with courage and with pride at being who they were: Slayers. But most of all, Buffy wished she could have had more time with the vampire she still loved. She longed to go back in time, to take back all the things that made him hurt. Things that she could have prevented, things she could have refrained from saying or doing.

"Buffy?" came a familiar voice from just outside. "Breakfast's ready!" It was Dawn, her voice as cheerful as it had been since that day, three months ago, the day they never talked about except in late-night whispers and tacit looks.

Clearing her throat of any lingering pain, the Slayer replied, "Be out in a sec, Dawnie." She ran her fingers through her hair, cut short again, and held back a sigh. She pulled the covers off and put her feet to the floor, pushing her toes into the soft, mint-green carpet. Her room was bare like that of a hospital, a single dresser with neatly closed drawers standing against the opposite wall. The walls were a shade or two lighter than the carpet, and her bed a light cerulean blue. A mirror rested on top of her dresser, leaning against the wall with one spiderweb-like crack, just an inch long, at the top corner. Buffy stood and walked slowly to look at herself in her cracked mirror, frowning at the way her hips showed even through her sweatpants.

Buffy went to the adjoining bathroom and changed. She brushed her teeth, avoiding her reflection's gaze, before stepping briskly out and down the stairs to breakfast. Giles, Kennedy, Xander, and Dawn were seated already, making small talk and eating. Giles, Xander, and Kennedy all lived elsewhere, but they often stayed over or arrived early; their presence was not abnormal, even at this early hour. Giles and Xander lived in the same apartment complex a block away, Kennedy in a dorm at the University. Willow had also applied at the University, and received an acceptance letter promptly, but she chose to live with Buffy and Dawn instead of at the strange college dorm.

Montana was strange for all of them. Giles, used to rain in Britain and continual hot weather in California, had the hardest time adjusting; and they had yet to experience winter in the Big Sky state. They had arrived here in June, just in time for Willow and Kennedy to start their terms at the college, UM Fairview. The summer was surprisingly warmer than Buffy had expected. It reached over a hundred degrees multiple times, while the Californians had assumed it would be only around sixty. The air was drier here, but so much clearer and free of smoke. There were mountains all around, and Buffy couldn't help thinking how they looked more like paintings than real parts of the landscape. The stars were so much brighter than they had been in Sunnydale, but she had lived there, and it seemed like Montana would never really be her home. In fact, Buffy had wished to stay in California, perhaps L.A., but the Slayer must go where the Hellmouth is, and that was here in Fairview. And besides, no sales tax!

Buffy's thoughts were interrupted when Willow came through the front door, holding the mail. It was sunny outside today, Buffy noted, as her friend's appearance revealed a cloudless blue sky, the green leaves of Willow's aspen trees overhanging the doorjamb like a wreath. "You got something, Buffy." Expecting a bunch of crisp white envelopes demanding money, she was surprised when Willow placed a manila envelope in her hands, one of the ones with bubble wrap glued to the inside to prevent the thing inside breaking. She turned it carefully in her hands to see that on the front, her name and address was handwritten in spidery writing.

"That's funny..." Buffy murmured. "No return address." She weighed it carefully in her hands, not knowing whether to expect a bomb or not. She carefully opened it and slid its contents into her open palms. What now lay in her hands made her gasp and stand up, dropping it onto the table in recoil. What kind of sick joke was this? What lay on the table was the amulet. The champions' amulet that had saved the world and caused Spike's death simultaneously.

Her friends all saw what Buffy had dropped. "What the-" Willow started, obviously shocked and a little angry. Yet before the Wicca could finish her sentence, light streamed from the amulet to a spot next to Buffy. No one said anything; they were stunned. This sense of nonacceptance was minuscule in comparison to how they felt when a most familiar someone materialized. "Bewilderment" could not cover the look on his face, and yet the intake of breath from the woman next to him held more confusion, pain, and hope than one might imagine could fit in such a breath.

"Spike?"


End file.
